Not Quite The Devil You Know
by Taranea
Summary: Returning from Scotland, the Winchesters manage to get stuck in London. Dean does not appreciate this. Sam is insisting it's not that bad - until an apparently possessed Bentley seems to be trying to kill them, a Duke of Hell has enlisted Alastair for revenge on a (very confused) Crowley, and our favourite hunters - of course - are smack-bang in the middle.
1. The Not-so Friendly Skies

A/N: Hi there and welcome to the fic! This is a crossover of _Supernatural_ and _Good Omens_, but I'll try and put in background info for characters regardless, so even if you're not too familiar with either of the two series you should probably be able to read and enjoy.:)

For timelines, this story takes place roughly during season 6 of Supernatural, when Sam and Dean go to the UK to find Crowley's bones, except Sam already has his soul back. It also ignores certain bits of SPN canon that have been established _after_ season 6. For Good Omens, the story takes place like a decade and a half after the events of the book. And onwards we go!

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**Not Quite The Devil You Know**

_by Taranea  
_

OoO

**Prologue:**

Over the course of their years as hunters of the supernatural, Sam and Dean Winchester have already gone to a variety of exciting, exotic and dangerous places. They have been to haunted houses, to the lair of a dragon, to the Wild West, to purgatory, to hell and even to comic conventions. In most cases, several times.

But it was once, and only once...that they went to England.

And things, of course, went horribly wrong.

**Chapter 1: The Not-so Friendly Skies**

"What?!" A well-built man in his thirties, wearing a cargo jacket and a facial expression that promised trouble, pointed toward a large window.

"You're telling me that _this airport_," he said, indicating their surroundings which consisted of that very special version of applied Chaos theory that was Heathrow, "this largest airport in this miserable country where it's constantly _raining," _he went on, "is closed because of _snow_?!"

His arm, trembling just slightly, was still extended and pointing to the weather outside the large window of the Heathrow departures counter.

"You call this _snow_?_!_" he asked, while a rather pathetic snowflake fluttered to earth outside without much visible enthusiasm, sort of clung to the window a little and then seemed to give up and melt.

"I'm sorry sir, but due to the weather forecast no flights will be leaving from Heathrow International Airport for at least the next 24 hours," the receptionist replied primly, looking the agitated man up and down while obviously wondering why some people were even allowed on planes.

"Look-" the man with the crew cut began again, but was stopped this time by a taller male with longer hair stepping up behind him, gripping him on the shoulder and trying to get him out of the face of the woman behind the counter.

"Dean. Stop it," he hissed, before flashing a sort of pained grimace at the receptionist, who was now giving the two a distinct '_Americans_'- look of British Disapproval.

"I'm sorry for my brother. It's okay. We'll wait until the airport re-opens," the taller man said, at the same time trying to gently but firmly steer the one called Dean away from the counter and back toward the exit of the airport. Dean didn't seem to be too happy about it.

"I psyched myself up for this flight, Sam! That took time!" An angry shrug shook Sam's hand off and Dean re-adjusted the strap of his backpack, which was the only item of luggage either of the brothers had.

"Yeah. I know." The taller man tried to speak in a manner as calming as possible. "Let's still leave before we get arrested in yet _another_ country, okay?" Sam gave a meaningful nod of his head, indicating the security that was already looking their way.

"Fine," Dean grunted, but at least stomped on ahead of his brother toward the exit now. To Sam's surprise, however, he didn't turn down the walkway leading to the trains they had taken to get here, but instead walked straight over to the parking decks. His older brother's mood seemed thunderous enough that it took Sam a couple of minutes to bring it over his heart to tell Dean what he had apparently forgotten.

"Er, Dean? We returned the rental, we don't have a-"

"No." The older of the two had stopped abruptly as he'd said that, dropping his backpack to the ground and turning around, his index finger raised threateningly. "We do have a car. We _always_ have a car. It just isn't here yet."

"What?" Sam looked around at the deserted level of the underground parking garage they were standing in. "Are you seriously planning to-?"

"Why not? He had no problem picking up our gear and the bones before we went through customs, so he obviously can transport things a lot easier than people." Dean shrugged, then turned around again, facing the wall and glancing vaguely upwards.

"Cas?" he asked the thin air. "Look, you may not be able to zap us home, or even stay here for longer than a minute, but at least get your angel mojo in gear for this. I want..." he cleared his throat. "No, scratch that. I _need_ my ride."

"He's fighting a _civil war_ in Heaven, Dean," Sam pointed out, his tone a bit like a pre-school teacher who was currently explaining to the class why their angel friend sadly couldn't drop in anymore, "He's so busy fighting against Raphael, he's not even answering my prayers half of the time. You can't seriously expect him to-"

There was a distinct sound like the fluttering of wings. Sam paused mid-sentence, mostly because Dean standing in front of him was now wearing the biggest shite-eating grin.

"The Impala is standing behind me now, isn't it?" the taller man asked.

"Yup."

"...angels playing favourites is so _totally_ unfair."

"Get over it. As long as we don't have to ride friggin busses again," Dean said, at the same time stepping over to the driver's side of the car, dumping his backpack on the back seat and sliding behind the steering wheel with an obvious sigh of pleasure.

"Yeah, Cas must be the only person on Earth who actually _likes _riding public transport," Sam said, also taking his customary shotgun seat and closing the door behind him. Dean had started the ignition with the key conveniently already inside, and soon enough the black '67 'Metallicar' Impala was slowly moving out of the parking space and toward the exit. As they emerged from the garage and drove onto the open road, more snowflakes than before were now falling from the sky and Dean's mood noticeably darkened again.

"The weather is getting worse. Great. If these people over here already start closing down their airports when they see even a _picture_ of a snowflake, we'll be stuck here until Crowley back home dies of old age."

"According to the weather forecast it does seem like it'll be snowing heavily for at least the next two days," Sam said, reading the information from his phone. Then he frowned. "Bit strange, though. Most sites are labelling it as a 'freak snow storm' that came completely out of the blue."

"Yeah, I know, snow in winter, what a weird and whacko weather pattern, right?" Dean grunted .

"Well, this _is_ England," Sam pointed out as the Impala rolled onto the M4, making its way back toward London and probably scaring the minis driving beside them.

"Yeah, tell me about it," grumbled Dean, staring at the road ahead of them miserably. "They can't even call fries by their real name. I swear, we shouldn't have declared independence, we should have taken this place over."

Sam sighed. "Let's just find a place to stay for the next couple of nights, okay? And calm down. You're acting like this was some act of cosmic vengeance or something."

xxx

"_For how many days this time?!_" the question had been asked in a tone of dismay, and the curly-haired, kindly-looking man who had spoken actually looked quite troubled.

"Just two. Or maybe three," the other man sitting on the coach across replied serenely, sipping at a cup of tea he held.

From a spectator's perspective, the two hardly could have looked more different – Aziraphale, the anxious blonde on the left with his loose, brown pants and plaid vest that probably hadn't even been fashionable when it had been in fashion, was not only visually a stark contrast to his slim, dark-haired companion. Anthony J. Crowley, as he called himself, was dressed as usual in a tight-fitting, black bespoke Italian suit paired with a dark red silk shirt and snake skin boots - it was an outfit so sharp, it actually threatened to cut unsupecting bystanders.

Additonally, mild blue eyes and an already slightly pudgy middle-aged face and figure meant Aziraphale never quite lost that aura of a mildly distressed armchair, especially when put out by something - but looking at Crowley, even when you saw him just lounging on the sofa like this, for some reason a very old part of your brain would insist that what you were _really _seeing was something with scales that struck from the grass.

And one _other_ important difference was that they weren't men at all, but actually one happened to be a somewhat bibliophile angel of the Lord, and the other...well, he _had_ been an angel once, but since then had not so much Fallen, as Vaguely Sauntered Downwards. Currently the latter was smiling, but that smile was now slowly disappearing and being replaced with a frown of annoyance as it became apparent that the distraught expression of the angel wasn't disappearing.

"Oh, come on. The closing down of Heathrow is my favourite event in the season. _And_ I kept my promise to you not to do it around Christmas, so everyone could go home for the holidays," the demon complained, only gagging a little around the last sentence.

"But do you have to do it every year?" Aziraphale asked with a sigh, and Crowley grinned again.

"_Absssolutely_."

"Very well. As long as there are no plane crashes this time around," the angel replied, seemingly resigned to London's snowy fate for now. He picked up his coat. "Shall we?"

"Of course." Crowley rose from his chair in one fluid movement, still radiating smugness worse than a cat that had gotten into the radioactive cream. "The Ritz tonight, then?"

"Yes. Your treat this time," the angel reminded him as they were both about to exit the bookshop. "Though mind you, one of these days I wouldn't be surprised if one of your wiles wouldn't come back to, as they say, 'bite you in the...' _well,_" Aziraphale didn't finish the sentence, but still managed to give an impression of general divine disapproval to convey his meaning.

Crowley snorted as they got into his car, the demon letting the engine spring to life with a snap of his fingers, not because the snapping was necessary, but because of _style_, and only gave his friend a condescending sneer.

"One of my wiles backfiring on _me_?" the demon asked in a patronizing tone while the angel rolled his eyes, both of them completely oblivious to a very _different_ black car currently speeding toward London. Crowley laughed.

"_Hardly_!"

xxx

"So we're stuck in London," Dean stated for what felt like the hundredth time, both brothers walking along the wet pavement and shuffling past other pedestrians. The mood of the older Winchester had not improved. "They don't even have motels here. Or diners. No _culture_, I'm telling you."

"Come on. The curry around this Soho area is supposed to be decent," Sam once again tried to mend the US-Europe relations, but without much success. They had found a cheap-ish hotel closeby that also offered a parking space for the Impala, but trying to drive around in London during the day, the receptionist had said, was 'a bit of a bother', so the two brothers had left the car and were now searching for food on foot.

"That looks like an okay place," Dean pointed at a pub across the street that (unsurprisingly) had a big picture of a pie on its menu. The younger Winchester nodded as Dean had already started to cross to the other side.

"Yeah, okay, let's g-"

And it was at this point that Sam saw death coming for his older brother, and it was black, elegant and travelling at at least at 70 miles per hour.

It was only because Dean hadn't looked toward the correct side. Sam lunged forward, desperately trying to grab him, to pull him back, do anything to prevent him dying here, in London, from something so stupid and trivial as a _car accident_, but even then he could already see he would be too late. Sam screamed his brother's name at the exact same moment the '27 Bentley made contact with Dean's skin.

xxx

"_Watch OUT!_"

In the manner of all shotgun riders of crazy drivers, Aziraphale was grabbing onto random things in the car, clinging on for dear life. It was doubly useless, not only in the way that grabbing onto anything in a moving car wouldn't save you in the event of a crash, but also in the sense that Aziraphale was an immortal angel, and therefore very likely to survive a traffic accident anyway.

That still didn't mean he _wouldn't_ hold on the handle bars, though, nor keep Crowley from actually _getting_ into crashes in the first place. Fortunately, for an angel, moving objects like street lamps_,_ or hapless people like the young man just now by simply altering reality with a small miracle wasn't that hard of a task. Also, after driving around with Anthony J. Crowley for the better part of a century, keeping anyone from getting killed during their outings by now was pretty much a mere subroutine for Aziraphale.

"_You almost ran over a pedestrian!_"

It was still angelic duty to point it out, however.

The demon at the steering wheel shrugged. "It's on the street, it knows the risk it's taking."

"You were driving at over 70 miles per hour in the middle of London," Aziraphale stated dutifully. "I don't think anyone is prepared for that."

The dark-haired demon gave an irritated wave with his hand. "So? They looked American. There's too many of them around, anyway."

"_Crowley_!"

xxx

"What the hell! Where'd that car come from?!" Dean shouted, just as Sam had managed to pull him back to safety at the last second before he could step onto the street. He shrugged his younger brother's grip off, straightening his jacket as he looked after the pitch black antique racing away at a speed that shouldn't have been possible in the middle of the city.

"Although being run over by that actually wouldn't be the worst way to go," he added with a somewhat grudging appreciation. "Just would like to see the bastard driving it like that."

Dean had said it in a casual tone, but, as he turned back to Sam and actually saw his younger brother's expression, stopped himself from saying anything more. Sam seemed to have trouble getting his breathing under control, and his eyes were too wide, his face entirely too pale.

"...what?" Dean asked. "I'm okay, Sammy. You caught me in time."

"Yeah..." his brother agreed, the expression of fear now slowly dissolving, but instead being replaced by one of confusion. "But...weren't you in _front_ of that car just a second ago?"

Dean looked at his brother. From anyone else, that question would have sounded like nonsense, because if he really _had _stepped onto the street earlier, he probably would already be having a meeting with a very bony gentleman, but...for some reason what Sam had said _sounded_ like it was right. But it couldn't have been.

"No..." Dean replied, but he didn't seem so sure. Most people would have dismissed a weird, near-death experience as a trick of the senses, but when your family name was Winchester...

Sam looked at his older brother worriedly.

"It's not Tuesday, is it?"

_To be continued..._

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Still reading? Awesome, thanks! :D I hope you liked the first chapter, and would love nothing more than some feedback! (Or questions?) This fic is also beta'd by the lovely **Toaster-****Omlette**, who has some great Good Omens on her own profile, so if you're still looking for reading material, I suggest heading over there.;) Cover-Art by yukikousagi from Deviantart, permission requested!

If you read, please review! :3


	2. Don't Cross the Streams!

**Anonymous Review Replies!**

**boop: **Thanks, I try! I love crossovers :D

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**Chapter 2: Don't Cross The Streams!**

"Come on. The curry last night wasn't so bad, now, was it? And the airport's due to open again in a few days," Sam said as they were sitting in a cafe the next morning, both trying to warm up from the cold air outside. Dean was still looking unhappy that they would be stuck in England for the day at least, and Sam was slowly losing patience with the grumpy mood of his older brother.

"Let's just treat it as a holiday, okay? _Normal_ people get to take those."

"A holiday," Dean grunted. "When do _we_ ever get a holiday? I mean, this is London," he said redundantly, looking out at the street through the cafe's window with the discontent of any country boy that lived for open roads but was currently forced into urban life and had already had a run-in with several city pigeons, "By the end of the day we'll probably have, I dunno, a run-in with zombie Shakespeare, or a reincarnation of Jack the Ripper, or there's bloodthirsty mermaids in the friggin _Thames_ -"

"Or maybe _nothing_," Sam cut him off, but, to be truthful, even he wasn't entirely convincing himself. He had been a bit on edge ever after the run-in with the black vintage car yesterday, but so far, nothing out of the ordinary had happened after that. After dinner at the pub, Dean had gone out drinking and come back sometime in the night with enough lipstick on his face that the only 'death' he had died that night might have been a very little one. Sam had spent the time finally relaxing and reading in their hotel room, getting a little tipsy himself with the help of the mini bar and writing another letter to Stephen King. So at least he was _trying_ to tell himself that this could be a holiday.

But then again, he couldn't have known about the demon Hastur, Duke of Hell and more powerful than anything they had come across ever, possessing the body of a short, stocky waitress only five yards away from them.

xxx

It had been twenty years. In fact, it had been even slightly more than twenty years, but, despite it being a virtue, demons could be patient.

"Crowley...you managed to botch the apocalypse...you managed to _melt_ Ligur...a bastard only _I _should have been allowed to kill..."

Of course, the duke of hell was referring to the very unfortunate incident about twenty years ago, when the demon in question had not only managed to avert the end of the world and blatantly disregarded his orders, but also had placed a bucket of holy water over a door just as Ligur, long-time partner of Hastur had entered it when they had been sent to collect Crowley for his disobedience. And Hastur's capability of holding onto grudges was so good he was practically a black hole of resentment.

"Oh, I am going to show him. I am going to _burn his heart out._"

This time, Hastur wasn't going to make the same mistake as twenty years ago. This time, he had not ascended in a custom-tailored human body that reflected his true form, but had taken possession of a random mortal instead. It meant he was far from as powerful as he could be, but holy water could only cause him minor burns in this form. Crowley, on the other hand, who was still walking around in that oh-so-sharp bespoke body he had received from Hell, would not be so lucky. Just like Ligur, he would instead suffer a very, _very_ messy death. And he hadn't the faintest what was coming for him. The possessed waitress broke out into a demonic cackle as she poured the Mocha Latte that was laced with the blessed liquid.

This also caused her coworkers, who had been listening to her incomprehensible mumblings all morning, to start getting slightly worried at this point - work had clearly been getting to her.

Hastur now very carefully placed the hot beverage an unsuspecting Crowley had ordered not five minutes ago on a tray, put the container with the rest of the holy water to the side, and then started to walk with the glass toward the stairs leading to the upper level of the cafe, where his prey was currently sitting in blissful ignorance and reading a newspaper.

xxx

"Oh, by the way," Sam spoke up while Dean was busy taking out his frustration on some innocent eggs, "while you were out yesterday I was just reading up on some lore. I found something that might be helpful when dealing with demons in the future."

"We _have_ something that is helpful when dealing with demons." His older brother wasn't looking up from his food. "It's called 'Ruby's knife'."

"Yeah, but it never hurts to have alternatives. I have found something that's basically like...an emergency exorcism."

Dean stopped eating, fork halfway to his mouth.

"What now?"

Sam pulled out a sheet of paper he had scribbled something on. "It's basically supposed to be a _really _short exorcism that is still very powerful. Problem is, it doesn't work if the demon is caught in a devil's trap, and also you have to be really close to him, like within arm's reach. So most of the time you'll probably be ganked before you even have the chance to say it, but it can be a last resort. So, emergency exorcism." The taller man looked at his brother after this explanation, seemingly quite pleased with himself.

Dean blinked. Then: "Dude, you _really _need to get out more."

Sam gave him a flat stare. "Also, it's less than two lines of text, so even _you_ should be able to learn those." Before his older brother could snap back a retort, the younger Winchester slid the writing pad toward him on the table. "Here, try it."

Dean levelled another stare Sam, but then seemed to give in, and pushed his plate aside to glance at the paper. Sam's writing was illegible at best, making Dean often wonder whether his younger brother wouldn't have been better off studying to become a doctor rather than a lawyer. But the 'emergency exorcism' really was only two lines of Latin text and at least most of the words were familiar. Dean took a breath and read them aloud.

"_Deus, audi orationem._.."

It came as a surprise to most people in the café when the waitress just passing their table then simply burst into flames.

xxx

Upstairs, Crowley stopped reading his newspaper. This was because it had started to rain on his angel food cake.

"Sprinklers?" the demon asked aloud.

xxx

"_Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh_-!"

The waitress was screaming as flames licked at her form and black smoke had started to come out of her ears. Sam and Dean stared at her completely flabberghasted for a moment, but fortunately, the café owner was a lot quicker to react. Without thinking, he grabbed the container of water that was for some reason standing on the counter, and sloshed it all over the woman.

This, inexplicably, did not seem to have the desired effect.

xxx

"_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH_-!"

"What the-?!" Sam and Dean had leapt to their feet, staring at the waitress whose eyes had now _definitely_ turned red, and the younger Winchester was about to pull out the knife, when her mouth finally opened and a tell-tale cloud of black smoke erupted, fleeing the steaming body and vanishing through the air vent.

"Was that-?" Sam grabbed the book still on the table, trying to flip open a particular page which was made difficult by the sprinklers now raining harder, British smoke alarms apparently a little bit sensitive to demon exorcisms. But at least they had also extinguished the last of the flames, the woman collapsing to the ground, unconscious, but miraculously unhurt.

"Aaaaaah! They have a _knife_!"

"Uh, Sam-" Dean was trying to get his brother's attention as now the first exclamations were breaking the silence in the cafe, and the two Winchesters were unfortunately right at the center of attention.

"These two! I saw them! They mumbled something and then she caught FIRE!" another woman sreamed shrilly while pointing at them, and _now_ the older Winchester was pretty sure he could also hear police sirens in the distance as the noise level was now rising rapidly.

"Oh my god, it's a robbery!"

"No, I've seen it on telly, it's like in this culture they burn women's faces if they try to-!"

"TERRORISTS!"

And the café erupted into a riot.

Fortunately, in the general chaos it was still rather easy for the brothers to push past the waiters with practised ease and then sprint out the back door, Dean only vaguely noticing that right in front of the café, in a no-parking zone, there stood a particular black Bentley.

xxx

Police sirens now. Downstairs, people screaming like they hadn't since the last witch hunt. Crowley sighed and folded up his copy of the _Sun _(he was particularly proud of his invention of _that _one). Any hope of a peaceful breakfast now gone, the demon rose from his chair and, sprinklers curiously avoiding to hit him even with a drip of water, walked out of the café toward his parked car. He passed the unconscious woman without much concern, and, in turn, nobody particularly noticed him

Random activation of sprinklers to ruin a brunch outing. Well, at least he could always use that idea for some demonic activity in the future, so the morning hadn't been a total waste.

Mood somewhat restored, Crowley decided to bother Aziraphale for breakfast instead, and then perhaps buy another house plant for his apartment. There was a less-than-perfect camellia that needed..._replacing_.

The stereo in the car playing a particular Kansas song from a cassette that hadn't yet been in the Bentley for a fortnight, Crowley drove off, whistling.

xxx

Several thousand metaphorical miles below, Hastur, now safely back in hell, paced in his office.

Possessing someone had at least worked to conceal his aura from Crowley, despite the failed assassination. It was also a way of walking the earth that was a lot less dangerous than going up there in your own form that you had to...well, fill out a form for. That was what had gotten Ligur killed, though. Get even a small amount of holy water on a body that really _belonged_ to you, represented somewhat what you looked like, and you were done for. Getting splashed while possessing someone was still rather painful, but at least it left you the option to escape and survive. The downside of this much safer and stealthier way, however, came with a great reduction in power. Hastur paused and drummed his claws on the table in his lavishly furnished office in hell's capital city of Dis. Should he ascend in his true form, then, despite the danger and unleash all his fury on Crowley in a single show of demonic rage? He _was_ a Duke of Hell. That miserable wretch wouldn't stand a chance when it came to a direct comparison of power...

But no. The new management (Hastur almost felt like throwing up when thinking of the smug bastard who had taken power – he himself had favoured Lilith, she at least was _old_ and _proper_) the new management _disapproved_ of big showy displays that drew attention.

Well.

Then again, at least the new boss – Howdy, or whatever he called himself – was busying himself with some sort of monster experiments or whatever plebeians had as a hobby these days and wasn't paying much attention to what the demon nobility was up to. Just as well. But it meant that before going all out, Hastur thought, it might be a wise decision to exhaust at least the rest of the options of how best to make Crowley suffer. Having finally made a decision, the duke of hell nodded to himself and then turned to stride out of his office, leaving the door with the Crowley dart board swinging shut behind him and turning firmly toward the more crowded parts of Dis, where the lower classes resided.

As such, Hastur didn't like consorting with...lesser demons. That was, demons that weren't of angel stock, belonging to the original Fallen like himself and that dirtcrawler, Crowley, but demons made from human souls. Hastur's lip twisted in contempt. Human souls that had been twisted over hellfire for decades first, maybe, but still. And lately, they had also been getting rather uppity.

But then again, Crowley had always said that, for all their shortcomings, human beings were at least..._inventive_, Hastur thought as he arrived at the door he had been looking for, the residence of a very particular lesser demon.

Because when it came to torturing, this one was supposed to be the master of the craft.

"Hello, duke," Alastair greeted Hastur as he entered. "What can I do for you?"

_To be continued..._

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Everyone who commented, thanks a bunch, it did give me the confidence to post the new chapter! :D Crossovers can be tough, but I hope you liked it! Anyone worried for London's safety yet? :p If you read, please review!


	3. EX-GERMINATE!

**Anonymous Review Replies!**

**Guest: **Sure, looking forward to it! :D Hope you like!

**me** (you?): Ahh, of course they would have saved him! Everybody knows when it comes to demons, the Winchesters are loving and compassionate, and - yeeeeeah, maybe they wouldn't have. :P But thanks for your review! Get ready for more Crowley-saving action in 3..2...!;)

**yourself:** You bet it will be! :D Thanks for commenting! :)

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**Chapter 3: EX-GERMINATE!**

"So...I hear you're good at torture."

"You have heard correctly," Alastair replied, regarding Duke Hastur steadily. The human demon was still wearing the last vessel he had inhabited, a tall, wiry man with thinning foxbrown hair and a smile that would have made anyone but another demon sick.

"I may have been...out of the picture for a while due to some, ah, inconveniences, but I am still very much the most skilled purveyor of pain around these parts. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Hastur had to admit it, even the way the demon spoke was enough to make you want to avoid contact with him. He would be dam – _blessed_ if he let any of that show on his face, however.

"There is someone I'd like you to try your skills on."

"Oh?" Alastair asked, and the way his face spread into a smile now uncannily reminded the duke of something nuzzling at dead meat in the Savannah. "Who?"

"A demon named Crowley," Hastur replied and Alastair's expression changed from predatory to disbelief.

"What_?_! That punk-ass crossroads demon that most of the time used to be drunk off his arse? I don't know whether you noticed, your grace, but he is currently _slightly_ higher on the food chain than both of us."

"What?" Hastur frowned. "I'm not talking about any crossroads demon. I'm talking about our field agent in the British Empire!" He paused. "Though the drunk-of-his-arse-bit sounds about right."

"The British...?" Alastair began, then stopped. Right. The torture expert reminded himself that most of the higher demons did not spend that much time on earth as such and therefore could be a bit behind in current events. He cocked his head.

"So...we're talking about a different Crowley, then? Not that upstart?"

"I have no idea who _you_ are talking about, but the one I'm referring to is one of the original Fallen, like me," Hastur replied, though saying that last bit out loud seemed to actually be physically painful for him. Some more explanations followed, mostly concerned with treachery against Hell, a completely ruined apocalypse, and antichrists not being what they used to be. It ended with Hastur's unlucky stint as a waitress in a small café in south London, and when he was finished, the gears in Alastair's head had already started turning (possibly crushing some innocent victims between them).

"I see," the demon said, leaning back against the table. "The chance to torture an angel who chose to Fall. That sounds interesting."

"Yes, but first I need to kill him to drag him back to hell, and I want long, long hours of utter _terror_ for him leading up to that event. I just don't want to get burnt in the process again," Hastur said, the last bit coming out somewhat plaintive. Alastair gave an unholy grin.

"There is no need to worry. I know exactly what we'll do."

"You'll go to Earth instead?"

"Oh, no, no, no, your Grace." Alastair smiled. "The proper way is you don't do the dirty work yourself. At first you use..._agents_."

xxx

"Okay. What the hell. Demons in town? _Here_?" Sam asked. The two brothers were now walking along the streets of London once more, having briefly stopped off at their hotel to change their soaked clothes. "Do you think this is a case?"

Dean snorted. "In my opinion, Crowley probably just put out a revenge hit on us. I mean, dude's gotta be pissed after we dug up his bones. Nothing we can't handle." He pointed at the piece of paper in his brother's hand. "What are we looking for again, anyway?"

Sam, who previously had taken more than ten minutes to explain to his older brother the meaning of the long and complex botanical nomenclature written down on the list he was holding, sighed.

"A bunch of flowers, Dean."

"What does Bobby want with _that_?"

"I think they're the ingredients for a batch of hex bags he wants to prepare for a group of hunters up north," Sam replied, looking again at the text message from their older friend. "And since he seems to be really happy to have his soul back, he decided to show his gratitude by sending us shopping."

"Some gratitude," Dean grunted, but there was no real malice behind it. Ever since the old hunter had all but adopted the two brothers when their own father kept dropping them off at his place, there were only few things the two _wouldn't_ have done for him if asked.

"So why are we shopping for a bunch of weeds in London?"

"I think some of them are illegal in the US. Anyway, this is the address he gave us," Sam said, coming to a stop in front of a store that looked large, but a bit neglected and run-down.

Dean's eyebrows rose a bit as he noticed a black classic Bentley parked outside, despite there being no parking space anywhere. For some reason, it seemed to him as if he had been seeing a lot of them in the last 24 hours, but he wasn't exactly sure whether it was the same one, or a lot of Londoners just had money and taste in cars.

The bell above the door jingled as the two brothers entered, but other than that, the store was almost eerily quiet. This was especially strange as it also seemed far larger than the exterior had suggested, the pale winter sun filtering through a skylight, and two paths of terracotta stone disappearing into what seemed like a veritable maze of plants on display. With all the greenery surrounding them and the warm, humid air - probably due to the artificial lily pond in the middle of the sprawling shop - it felt, in fact, a bit like as if they had stepped out of London and into the jungle...

And Dean couldn't help but feeling that somewhere in it, there was something on the prowl.

He shook off the odd notion and instead stepped further into the store, looking around for a shopping assistant or something. Beside him, Sam was scanning the list again.

"Okay, so the first thing we're supposed to get is a plant called..."

"Right," his brother replied, though Sam could tell he wasn't even listening. Not that Sam could blame him - truth to tell, the odd, jungle-like shop was kind of giving him the creeps as well, his hunter's instinct already screaming at him to leave.

"Let's just get the plants and go, Dean."

"Okay...," the older Winchester replied, craning his neck because he thought he had seen someone else in the shop, just behind a thick row of potted ferns and other plants of the sort cats enjoyed devouring. But the guy had been wearing a black suit, he thought, so definitely not a shop assistant. Where _was_ everybody, anyway? How big was this store? Then something else caught his attention.

"Sam?" Dean asked, but the younger Winchester ignored him, instead also looking around for some customer service. Finding a shop assistant would be a first priority because if the store was really this large, they could be here for hours, and Sam had no intention of letting that happen.

"Uh, Sam? There's-"

Behind him, Dean was talking again, but Sam had already taken a few steps forward, hoping to catch at least a glimpse of someone else inside. "Hello?" he called into the general direction of the interior of the shop, but there wasn't any reply, the silent wall of green foliage seeming to swallow all sound. Sam even wondered whether some of the leaves had just _moved -_

"Dammit, _Sam_!"

The taller man let out an annoyed sigh. "What is it now, Dean? Seriously, can't you be quiet and focus for a minute? Because I think something definitely is wrong here," Sam said, turning around.

It was at this point that he noticed that Dean had a moving green vine wrapped around most of his forearm, and despite his struggling ultimately seemed to be losing a fight against a begonia.

As Sam's eyes widened in amazement, the flower just continued to enthusiastically crawl upward, clearly aiming for the hunter's throat. Dean momentarily stopped tugging to free himself from the floral fiend, and took a moment to stare at his brother.

"You _think_, Sammy?!"

xxx

Crowley was used to terrifying his plants. He wasn't used to them trying to avenge their botanic brethren.

"What the-?!" the demon hissed and pulled back, his eyes behind the sunglasses glowing a hellish red as he tore at the flora with slightly more than human strength. What was _happening_? A moment ago, he had simply been looking for a cactus. _Now_ he was staring with huge yellow eyes at a sort of rose that had curled up like a snake and managed to _hiss_ at him while rattling a thorny tail.

Crowley knew he had a reputation among plant shops in the city. Aziraphale once had told him he'd wanted to buy Crowley a poinsettia for a Christmas present, only to find out it had thrown itself off the table when he left it alone for a moment, apparently preferring suicide to a life in the demon's apartment. But actually _attacking_ was a different approach altogether.

Crowley snarled and tried to summon up hellfire, but that didn't seem to impress the plants much. Were they controlled by a demon themselves, then? A palm tree tried to fall on top of him and the demon dodged it at the last second, also evading most of the pansies that were now hurling themselves off the shelves at his head.

"Ow! Stop it! _Ow_!"

The store had been curiously empty ever since he had entered ten minutes ago. He had only heard the door bell jingle once since then, two men coming in, but Crowley had been too busy to really notice anything about them, because right after that, the plants had started to attack.

Now Crowley was attempting to simply will himself out of the store, but could feel that he was definitely being repelled. No demon magic possible, then. Which meant that he either had to be standing in a devil's trap, _or _a more powerful demon was blocking him. In the absence of any paint store utensils in the area, Crowley was definitely leaning toward the latter alternative.

He swallowed. Now he could feel vines wrap around his torso before he could slip away, ensnaring him, and slight panic set in as he suddenly realized that the vines were wet and slimy. And belonged to a water lily. And it was now distinctly dragging him toward the pond in the shop, obviously harbouring herbaceous dreams of being a floral Cthulhu one day.

Foregoing any pretence of dignity now entirely, Crowley started flailing, his shades flying off his face as a liana went straight for his eyes and only narrowly missed them. The demon didn't even notice, scrambling to find even the tiniest purchase on the floor before he would be sleeping with the koi. Somewhere on the other side of the pond, there was a little splash, but there were still too many moving plants growing out of the water and hanging from the ceiling for him to really see what was happening. The thought shot through Crowley's head that there had been two other people in the store, too, and briefly wondered whether the splash had been them getting dragged into the pond, but also found himself unable to care very much. He was losing ground, inch by inch and was very likely going to be drowned, and how was he going to explain to the office the need for a new body _then_?

And then, just before the water could make contact with Crowley's skin, suddenly the vines tensed up and then flailed upwards, releasing him, before just as suddenly going limp and and flopping back to the floor. Crowley's head snapped around, trying to find out what had happened, only to have his eyes become even larger as he realized the whole pond suddenly seemed to be _steaming_. The plants in contact with the water were flailing before dying, and then turning black and curling in on themselves, even while the battle in the other parts of the store still seemed to be going strong. Apparently, the two hapless humans were putting up quite a fight. But what was going on with the pond...? Crowley pulled himself onto all fours and crawled up to the water's edge cautiously. He bent over it, peering into the murky depths...and then scrambled back as fast as he could with a strangled hiss as soon as he caught a glimpse of a rosary bobbing over to his side.

It was still a lily pond.

Just now it was filled with holy water.

Crowley bleached just a little as he involuntarily imagined just what his fate would have been had he been dragged into _that._

Behind the foliage, someone yelled something along the lines of "Dean! The knife is working!" but Crowley at this point really didn't care about any sort of cutlery and its effects. He needed to get out of this shop. Dashing past a row of menacing shrubbery, he was only vaguely aware of the two flailing tourists a couple of metres away. One of them glimpsed into his direction and the demon nearly paused, but then the orchids advanced behind him, and Crowley therefore booked it, Bentley leaving with screeching tires.

xxx

"The holy water works, too!" Dean yelled back at his brother who, was slashing at the plants with Ruby's knife, the flora turning blackened and dead wherever the blade cut. But even so, there were simply too many opponents, the brothers being pushed further and further back, having been cut off from the door. Since the demon-killing knife was working, Dean had tried out the holy water on a whim, using whatever was available and now was splashing buckets of it over shop interior, when something caught his eye that let him stop dead.

Namely, another pair of eyes, glancing his way just for a split second through the foliage, and then they were already gone. A pair of very yellow eyes, in a human face. The man they belonged to had dashed through the door, slamming it forcefully shut and nearly tearing the damned bell off its handle. The older Winchester cursed, trying to get away from the tulips gnawing at his boots, and was about to chase after him, when...

"DEAN!"

He turned around just in time to see his brother, who had been engaged in a deadly battle with a batch of daffodils, now spread-eagled against the wall, wrists and legs securely tied with ivy, the knife useless on the floor. The forget-me-nots were hopping towards him in their pots, ready to attack.

Dean swore under his breath as he had to turn his back to the escape route of the man in black and instead hurled the bucket with holy water with all his might.

xxx

"Demon...plants? I mean, like..._plants,_" Sam said for what felt like the umpteenth time, though it didn't seem to make any more sense to him now, either. It was about twenty minutes later that the brothers sat in the parked Impala again, having pulled up to a hold a block away from the killer plant shop. Sam was busy trying to dry himself with a packet of kleenex (but still smelled like holy swamp water), and Dean was still fishing flower petals out of places that were never have meant to have flower petals in them.

"We've had demon bugs before," the older Winchester pointed out.

"Yeah, but I doubt London has been built on a _Native American_ holy ground," Sam retorted, stuffing the last of the tissues into the ash tray. "And anyway, those back then were curse bugs, not demon bugs."

"Whatever. The knife worked, the holy water worked, I'm calling demon."

Sam looked at him. "You think Crowley's still out to get us?"

Dean shrugged. "Maybe. But..."

"But what?" Sam prompted him when the older Winchester didn't continue.

Dean took a breath. "But maybe it isn't Crowley. Maybe it has something to do with that Bentley."

"The _Bentley_?" Sam asked, sounding about as equally incredulous as when the discussion had been about possessed plants.

"That Bentley or the guy driving it," said Dean grimly. "I think I saw it at the café this morning, too. But also..." the older man paused a moment. "I saw the guy who drove away with it, Sam. He had yellow eyes."

"What?"

His younger brother was looking straight at him now, and Dean could see how carefully he was trying to control his expression. "Not like...?" Sam began, but didn't need to finish the question. Just as the hellhounds were burnt into Dean's memory, his younger brother would likely never forget the demon that had made him drink his blood before going on to kill their mother.

"...no. Not like him." Dean swallowed and then forced his mind away from the memories, gripping the steering wheel that felt reassuringly solid under his fingers, trying to focus on the present situation. "That thing's eyes were _all_ yellow, not just the iris. And vertical pupils. Like a cat. Or a snake."

"...okay," Sam breathed out and nodded.. "Fine. But if it isn't Crowley...maybe you were right. This could be a case."

The tension broken, Dean snorted. "_Could _be a case? Dude. I had to save you in there. You were _losing_ a fight, Sammy. Against a potted sunflower."

Sam glowered at him.

"Jerk."

Dean grinned. "Bitch."

And with that, the Impala sprang to life and rolled out and back toward London, "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" playing as the two world's best hunters and one demon in a Bentley sped towards the city, while at the same time in Dis after a failed assassination in a plant shop, literally all hell was breaking loose.

_To be continued..._

* * *

New season of Supernatural not far away now! (Though I doubt the storyline will be in any way as silly as this...:p) I recently even met a Crowley cosplayer, who was brilliant (even if I doubt it's easy to be recognized as one outside of Discworld conventions...) Thanks for all your comments, they're what makes fandom fun. :D If you read, please review!


	4. A Bit Of Light Reading

**Chapter 4: A Bit of Light Reading**

_"A fat lot of good your rotten plants did!"_

Somewhere in Dis, there was a Duke of hell, and he was very distinctly _not _happy. He was also currently shouting at Alastair, who was already envisioning said Duke upon something comfortable, like a damn rack.

"There! He escapes! _Unscathed_!" Hastur spat, replaying the security footage (CCTV was, in fact, an invention of hell) for what felt like the hundredth time. Once again a panicking Crowley could be seen madly dashing out of the door, scrambling into his car and then taking off as fast as he could, very much alive and very much in one piece.

"That shouldn't have happened. There was something weakening the plants. Something unprecedented that killed off demonic energy," Alastair protested, sounding just a tad bit defensive.

"Nonsense!" Hastur snapped, "The only power in London that possesses ways to counter Hell is that poofy angel, and he hasn't done any smiting in decades. Unfortunately, Crowley seems to continue to elude him," the Duke grumbled, before adding: "Anyway, that heavenly pest wasn't even anywhere close to the plant store when something killed your creatures. Hey. Are you _listening_?"Hastur barked at Alastair, but the chief torturer of hell only continued to ignore him. Instead, something on the security footage seemed to have caught his attention and the human demon was now staring at the grainy black and white picture while the edges of his mouth seemed to be going ever further down.

"Oh fer Chrissakes..."

"What?" asked Hastur.

Alastair looked at his boss and Hastur got the impression that the chief torturer was currently trying very hard to keep his voice even. Above his eye, there was a funny little muscle twitching.

Alastair took another breath.

"If I said, 'those _fucking_ Winchesters', would it mean anything to you?"

xxx

The bell tinkled as the younger one of those (currently not fucking) Winchesters stepped into the book store, carefully tucking his head in as he passed the doorway because of Tall People Problems.

Dean had said he wanted to go looking for what he still believed was a demon, while Sam, who thought they might be facing something else, had suggested going and studying the lore about what would potentially have snake-like eyes and be weak to holy water. A call to Bobby's had resulted in a) grumbling about why 'you two idjits can't even get the damn shopping right without stepping into a freaking case' and b) the advice of hitting up some of London's antique book dealers. As far as he knew, Bobby had said, their collection of old, rare books on lore and mythology was among the top five in the world. And as far as first impressions went, Sam thought, their friend just might have been right.

He took a few steps inside the old, dusty second-hand book store he had found in Soho, a bit off from the street where most of the other book dealers had been, and could already say that he was impressed. The shelves were creaky, worn and cluttered and seemed to follow no system of organization known to man, but still the (vaguely recognizable) section containing the books Sam was looking for was _huge_. The younger Winchester had never particularly studied anything about antique book prices, but even he could tell that some of these bible editions were incredibly rare and valuable. After only half an hour of browsing, Sam had already found works with more knowledge in them than he'd ever dreamed of.

The owner just didn't seem like he would let Sam buy anything.

"Hello. I'd like to get these."

"Uh...no."

"Excuse me?" Sam asked. That wasn't exactly the kind of answer you would expect in a shop. He had carried a stack of books relating to mythology of hell and beasts, and an interesting edition of the bible containing several additional chapters in the Revelation section, over to the desk with the old till the store owner sat at. But now there seemed to be some sort of problem with the next logical step.

"I can pay," Sam assured the man.

The book store owner, a Mr. Zira Fell by his name plaque at the door, seemed to squirm a little. Sam estimated the educated but awkward-looking man with the curly blonde hair, plaid vest and brown tweed pants to be probably middle-aged, a slight belly pudge attesting what 40-odd years of reading books and eating scones would probably do to you. At the moment, Sam would have judged Fell to be 1) British, 2) probably intelligent, and 3) gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrogen oxide (although he wasn't really sure where his brain had gotten that last comparison from).

Also, for some reason this financial transaction seemed to be physically painful for him.

"Oh, that's an accent you have there, isn't it? You're from the New World, I suppose?" the owner asked, almost sounding a little bit hopeful at his question. "In that case I'm very sorry, I can't take those plastic cards you people pay with."

"It's...fine. I do have cash. We do use that in America," Sam said slowly, even though this conversation was starting to take on the slightly bizarre flavour that was usually associated with trying to explain anything about pop culture or modern technology to Castiel.

Had that guy just called the US the 'New World'?

"But...those books are _really_ expensive," Fell said. "Not worth your money, honestly."

"What?" Sam blinked.

"Oh, and they're really boring, too."

"Okay, this _is_ a book store, right?" Sam asked, tone now increasingly incredulous.

"Look, you don't want those!" Fell seemed almost desperate at this point. "See here," he said, "these are much more entertaining works for boys your age."

With a hasty swipe, the owner had grabbed a book from a case that had newer-looking titles with much brighter colours that also looked a lot less...(well, Fell had a point there, _boring_) than the rest of the bookshop's inventory. The contrast of this single case with everything else was jarring, almost as if someone entirely different from the owner had added it on a whim. Now Fell was all but thrusting the book he held into Sam's face.

"Look, this one has all sorts of fantastical creatures in it, too!"

The younger Winchester's heart sank. He didn't even need to look at the cover with the two muscular men that had for some reason lost their shirts and seemed to staring at him with come-hither eyes to know which title the owner had grabbed.

"Sorry," Sam said with a grimace. "Not a big fan of _Supernatural_."

Why on Earth had these _goddamn_ books even made it across the pond?

xxx

Some time earlier and a few miles away, a black Bentley had been speeding toward central London, its driver just slightly upset and barely able to concentrate on Mozart's _We are the Champions_.

What had just happened?

Absent-mindedly, Crowley stopped the car and materialized himself new sunglasses while the tears in his suit simultaneously mended. The demon's fingers were gripping the steering wheel of the Bentley much more tightly than necessary. The area he had randomly parked his car in was the same where he had had breakfast this morning, which was perhaps his mind subconsciously hoping they could just start the day again without homicidal flora this time. Behind him, somebody honked angrily at Crowley, probably because the demon was completely blocking the narrow side street with his Bentley, but he didn't care. The person doing the honking wouldn't start honking again soon, anyway, mostly because his horn wouldn't work anymore and when he'd open up the front of the car to check why, he'd find out this was because the motor of his Mercedes had mysteriously turned into an enraged bobcat.

A few moments later Crowley found that the screams of the human behind him and the yowls of the feline were already working on calming his nerves.

Okay. The demon crossed his arms and sank back into the drivers seat. What _could_ it have been? Demonic for sure. He had to admit, the holy water didn't really make sense, but if this _had_ been Aziraphale's side at work, there would have been a lot more direct smiting (and a lot more righteous asshattery). Demons, then. Could it have been a simple prank? Or something more sinister? Crowley knew that hell and especially Hastur weren't especially fond of him. But...even if the power level suggested a Duke of hell or even something higher, this wasn't exactly Hastur's style. It was almost..._human_-level kind of imaginative.

Crowley's eyes narrowed. Should he tell Aziraphale about this? If this wasn't Hastur, he should be able to deal with it himself. If this _was_ the Duke, however...

Crowley turned the key in the ignition again. The Bentley sprang to life.

This was _his_ city. He wouldn't run as long as he didn't know for certain that this was indeed Hastur and not some other demon upstart. Perhaps later he'd tell Aziraphale about it, but right now, decision made, hell's field agent looked at the driver that had previously honked at him and now was begging a feral bobcat not to widdle all over his expensive laptop, and decided he felt like a cupcake and a chai.

xxx

Back in the book shop, Sam was still being proffered the horrible paperback, though he avoided looking at it. The covers had started out not resembling him or Dean at all, but, creepily, somehow the godawful illustration artist seemed to be catching on now. What had began as basically shirtless Conan the Barbarian and Rambo, Vampire Hunter, lounging on, over and around the Impala had gradually come to actually resemble Sam and Dean themselves. Sadly, their habit to usually walk around fully clothed still seemed to have bypassed the artist's accuracy entirely.

(Dean had remarked that any hunter walking around topless and in skin tight jeans was probably either weaponless or carrying their concealed weapons in their arse. Sam had pointed out that to most people believable realism and attention to practical detail were maybe not the main selling points of _Supernatural_. Dean had replied that in that case, the next time he was doing some sort of pin-up pose on the cover he would like to store some weapons in the _illustrator's_ arse and Sam had declared the topic closed).

The younger Winchester grimaced and looked back at the face of the equally unhappy-looking book seller again. The man had curious light blue eyes, he noticed, their gaze like a strange juxtaposition of kindness and at the same time an impression that if you looked deeper you would find steel, or possibly fire. And they looked _old_...

Sam shook his head just slightly and broke the eye contact, suddenly irrationally worried that this guy could maybe also read minds.

He licked his lips. Maybe honesty would work.

"I'm sorry, I really need these books. Please. It's...important," he finished somewhat lamely, but at least Fell looked like he believed that Sam was telling the truth.

If only he wasn't also looking like Sam had just told him he had just run out of puppies to kick and was now moving on to baby penguins.

"Or..." the younger Winchester took a breath. "If it's alright, maybe I could just copy some pages instead?"

And it was like a little sun had just risen in the book store.

"Why, certainly! I'll get you some paper right away." Fell had instantly cheered up and curiously seemed to lighten the whole shop with it. "There's a table in the back you could work on," he said, indicating a rickety wooden construction through a small door. "Would you like a cup of tea?"

"Er." Sam said. "I was more thinking of...you wouldn't have a photocopier? Or a...scanner...?" He trailed off as he slowly, gradually seemed to realize that there was only one piece of electronic equipment in the store, and it was a PC that looked like it might have been used during the moon landing.

The book store owner blinked at him. "Have a what, dear?"

Oh, _brother._

xxx

For some people, finding a single (even if possibly demonic) individual in the city of London when you had no name, no address and no personal info whatsoever about them, might have seemed an impossibility. But these people weren't hunters, and even more specifically, weren't Dean Winchester.

The older of the two brothers was currently walking along the street where he and Sam had earlier sat down for breakfast before this day had started to literally go to hell. Dean was currently also trying to recall everything he could about the creature he had glimpsed so briefly in the flower shop. He thought it had been a dark-haired, slim figure in a tight-fitted suit, caucasian and European-looking, but perhaps a slightly darker skin tone than he or Sam. Dean exhaled, his hands touching the fake FBI ID in his pocket out of habit, even if he wasn't sure whether that one would even be useful at all here.

Where was a James Bond licence when you needed one?

Dean looked around, eyes searching for the café they had fled from earlier today. He was a bit wary of being recognized, but he thought he remembered now that the Bentley had been parked there earlier. Maybe the base of the demon or whatever it was could be found around here.

Then he froze. Because the Bentley was _still_ there. Or more likely, there again. The older Winchester's eyes quickly roved over his surroundings, methodically and efficiently. Someone or something closeby was giving him the creeps. Was he being watched? It didn't feel like it, but somewhere...somewhere around here there had to be...

Green eyes narrowed.

There.

On the other side of the street. _Him. _

Dean instinctively stepped back into a house entrance, watching the figure while his mind was racing as he tried to work out what he should do next. The (probable) demon, still wearing the same meatsuit as he had in the shop, was striding down the street and now seemed to have stopped in front of a small cake shop. He looked around. Dean tensed.

And then grew increasingly confused as the assumed demon reached into his pocket to produce a coin and a tube of what seemed to be glue, and then went to stick said coin to the pavement floor.

"What." Dean said aloud.

xxx

Sam's head was slowly, but surely, developing that specific headache that suggested if he had to read yet another book on lore, he was going to set something on fire. But he couldn't stop now. He had found accounts of..._something_ in London. And elsewhere. But he wasn't quite sure what, exactly. Sometimes it was called a Serpent. Sometimes a demon. Dean had said something about snake eyes, hadn't he? A snake demon, then? Sam groaned. Neither of the Winchesters had ever encountered anything but demons that were just human souls twisted over hellfire – nothing but "ghosts with an ego" as Dean had put Crowley down once. The younger Winchester worked on, scribbling on the paper the book shop owner had given him, occasionally cross-checking things on his phone. He just wished half of the pages of supernatural activity in London wouldn't eventually start talking about aliens and some sort of phonebox.

xxx

15 minutes. It had been _fifteen minutes, _and Dean was starting to get _cold. _

The potential demon, on the other hand, wearing sunglasses for no reason in the middle of _winter, _was sitting cozy-warm between the charcoal heaters of the cake shop outdoor tables and eating a muffin. And snickering every time someone tried and failed to pick up the freaking coin he had glued to the floor. A woman was at the moment having a go, scrabbling at the thing before realizing that it was glued on and impossible to pick up, and then seemed to pretend to have been trying to tie her shoe the whole time. Another pedestrian not paying attention tripped over her while she was kneeling and gave an angry exclamation, to which the kneeling woman spat something equally vitriolic back at her. It ended with both women stalking off angrily, and the demon in the café now giggling into his girly foam tea thing.

Dean currently thought he couldn't believe this.

xxx

"Tea, dear?"

"Oh. Thank you," Sam replied, pleasantly surprised as the steaming mug was sat down beside him by the strange owner. He sniffed at it briefly, and then took a cautious sip. It was actually really nice.

"You're welcome." Fell smiled at him mildly. "It's nice when boys your age know how to enjoy a good cup of tea nowadays," he said, somewhat absent-mindedly patting Sam on the head as he disappeared with the tray again.

The younger Winchester blinked.

All his clothes had gotten drenched today. He was down to wearing his FBI suit. Men in suits did not get _patted. _

Least of all not by other men, and also, no one but Ellen or Bobby had called him 'boy' in a while and the book store owner looked younger than both of those two. Sam was approaching _thirty_, for Heaven's sake. Just how old compared to him did this book store owner think he _was_?

xxx

Instead of standing around and being cold in a house entrance, Dean Winchester was now standing around and being cold in a park. The older of the two brothers did not think of this situation as a vast improvement.

"Hey. The geese are flying low over Moscow."

Mostly because this particular park also seemed to be inhabited by a collection of absolutely raving lunatics.

"Piss. Off," Dean growled at the man in the trench coat (that so sadly wasn't Cas) and the stranger flinched and scrambled back through the bushes that he had come from. Dean grunted and turned back toward observing his target again.

What _was_ this guy planning?

After he had finished his snack at the cake shop, the man in the black suit had stood up and started ambling away, leaving the coin glued to the floor. Dean had decided to follow him, even if he only did that because he couldn't really come up with anything else. The (probable) demon hadn't demonstrated any particular hellish demeanour yet, apart from the ridiculous coin prank and now apparently leaving the café without paying (judging from the angry gasp of the waitress soon after). But, even if possibly demonically motivated, a dine-and-dash wasn't exactly an action that warranted Ruby's knife between the ribs. And besides, it wasn't even like Dean would have had any opportunity to do that, even if he had wanted to. From where he had found the guy at the cake shop, all the way to the park Dean had trailed him to, everywhere had been crawling with people and CCTV cameras.

Europe, and in particular London, was just too. Damn. Crowded.

And now they had been here in this way-too-busy park for what felt like another eternity, the demon trying to call someone on his cell phone and, going by his annoyed expression only getting the voice mail. Dean was watching him standing at the lake while he himself had hung back in the few trees. A few ducks had gathered around the demon expectantly, and were now quacking excitedly at his feet - again, this wasn't exactly _helpful_ when you were trying to prove to yourself that the thing you were looking at was a satanic abomination. The man in the black suit had tried to shoo the ducklings insisting on sitting on his feet off, but was now apparently resigned to his fate. As was Dean. And so the minutes had passed, with one demon getting molested by ducks and one hunter by strange men in trenchcoats, waiting for whatever person said demon was trying to reach and somehow Dean couldn't help but think this was the worst monster hunt he had ever been on. He hadn't even managed to catch a second, proper glimpse of the thing's eyes since they were now covered by the sunglasses. Absolutely _brilliant_.

"Sssh. At what time does the narwhal-?"

"God _dammit_!"

It was a fact unbeknownst to Dean Winchester, but the particular duck pond he was standing nearby actually also had a history of being a convenient meeting spot for agents of various organizations. Unfortunately, that also meant that someone else was trying to ascertain whether the confused and increasingly ticked-off hunter was their secret contact every ten minutes.

"Yeah, you better run. Freak," Dean grunted after the rapidly retreating figure of the latest one, and then turned back to survey his target again.

Where there now only was a demon-shaped hole in the air and some confused ducks.

"Son of a_ bitch_!"

_To be continued..._

* * *

New season of SPN has started! And first episode was already fantastic :D Plus, was recently at a convention, and even though it was anime-themed, you at times almost couldn't move without bumping into a Castiel. Gotta love fandom. Hope you liked, and if you read, please review! :D


	5. Like A Bat Out Of Hell

**Chapter 5: Like A Bat Out Of Hell **

"_Angel_! You in?!"

Sam startled at the shout from the entrance of the shop, and the _bang!_ from the door as it was flung inwards and bounced against the wall. The younger Winchester looked up from the last book he had been studying and squinted through the gaps in the shelves surrounding the table he sat at to get a better look at the new arrival. The man was moving fast, striding through the rickety book shop as if he owned the place and all Sam could see was something black, slender and expensive-looking sliding past. Also, for some reason the book shop suddenly felt like a lot less safe place to be...

"Hey, angel!" the stranger called again. "Stop hiding under your dust collection and talk to me! It's important. Didn't you get my message to meet me at the pond?"

"My dear!" Fell's voice finally answered, the owner of the book shop appearing down the staircase in a hurry. "Not so loud, I'm coming!"

The man in the black suit still didn't sound pleased. Sam poked his head around a bookshelf and saw him standing with his back toward him, arms crossed as he talked to the approaching Fell.

"I'll be as loud as I bloody want, I'm-"

"I've got a customer."

"...oh." Black suit guy paused. Then he waved a hand.

"Well, throw him out."

"What? Dear boy, I can't just-" Fell started to sputter, but Sam chose that moment to stand up and make his presence known to both.

"It's alright, I was planning on leaving, anyway. Thank you very much for the tea." Sam was already grabbing his notes, phone and jacket, nodding at them and heading for the door. Blacksuit had half-turned around as he walked past and Sam wondered for a moment why on Earth someone would be wearing sunglasses in the middle of winter in the inside of a _store_, but then mentally shrugged. Perhaps the guy was vision-impaired or something.

Sam stepped out into the street, slipping on his brown cargo jacket that sadly didn't match his black suit at all and tried not to shiver from the cold air. That snow storm _had _come out of no where. But then again, at least one mystery had been solved.

'Angel'.

'My dear'

_Yeah, no wonder that guy patted me on the head_. Sam absent-mindedly ran a hand through his hair. He had walked out of the bookshop that the Bentley was parked straight in front of, but because Crowley didn't want anyone to see it at the moment, Sam didn't.

Instead, the younger Winchester picked up his phone as it started ringing, displaying Dean's name under the call sign.

"Sam?" his older brother asked by way of greeting. "Let's meet back at the hotel. I've lost the bastard."

Inside, Crowley was still staring after the young man that had just left the shop. When Sam walked off, he turned to Aziraphale and raised an eye brow.

"Are they interbreeding them with giraffes now, or what?"

xxx

"No, I'm fairly certain he was just an American," the angel said, before adding with a bit of a thoughtful look, "I think they eat more over there."

Crowley's eyes narrowed. "What was he doing here? I think I've seen him somewhere before."

Aziraphale gave a vague little wave as he walked over to the sofa in the back where he put the two cups he was carrying down. "I'm not sure, actually. It sounded like he was a student with a project. But yes, he did seem vaguely familiar..."

Crowley irritably waved him off, instead opting to plunk down on the sofa himself opposite his friend.

"Doesn't matter, anyway. Just make sure no one's coming in anymore. There's...things happening."

"Oh? What kind of things?" Aziraphale asked, used to the cryptic nature of the demon he consorted with and also familiar enough with the subtle clues to recognize a rattled Crowley underneath. He poured them both wine that a moment ago had been tea. Crowley made a noise that could have been construed as a thanks if he hadn't been a demon, and took a sip before he spoke up.

"I think," he said, "that someone is trying to _hunt_ me."

xxx

"Sorry," Sam said, "He did _what_?"

Dean angrily yanked open their hotel room door and stomped inside.

"I _told_ you. He sat in the café forever, and was watching people trying to pick up a coin he'd glued to the floor. After that he was vaguely menacing at ducks and then he literally disappeared into thin air."

"So you're saying..." Sam began, then paused. "What _are_ you saying?"

"That in my opinion this isn't a demon but probably some sort of bastard love child of Gabriel and a fucking fairy, I don't know," Dean grunted, grabbing a beer and flinging himself into one of the grubby seats of the cheap hotel. "What about you? Found anything in the lore?"

"Well..." Sam settled in the seat opposite his brother, getting out the crumpled papers of his notes. "I found a few things that might relate to what we have here. There was one passage that said that only very powerful demons called Dukes of hell are able to 'reverse the order of nature', like make plants turn on...well, creatures that eat plants."

"You do," Dean pointed out. "I don't."

Sam didn't grace that one with a reply. "I didn't find anything much about snake-eyed monsters, though," he continued instead. "There...were some bits about a demon with yellow eyes, but I'm not sure whether those were about Azazel or a different one. Some of the passages were a bit strange."

"So we're dealing with what's potentially a 'Duke of hell', then," Dean summed it up. "Fantastic."

xxx

"So we're dealing with the Winchester brothers," Alastair grumbled. "Fantastic."

"What _is_ it with them?" Hastur asked, irritated but also seemingly intrigued by just what it could be that was putting Alastair out so much. "They're just ordinary mortals, are they not?"

Alastair sighed, wondering a bit how he could put it to the duke so that he would understand. He turned back toward him.

"You sound British," the torture expert said finally. "Are you aware of the expression 'a spanner in the works', then?"

"Yes," Hastur replied with a frown, a bit unsure of where this was going. "It's an idiom mortals use to indicate an obstruction to a plan going smoothly, isn't it?"

"Exactly, your grace," Alastair smiled in a way that wasn't funny, "And let me put it this way, in comparison to a 'spanner in the works', those two brothers are a blessed_ exploding home improvement store_."

xxx

"_Hunt_ you?" Aziraphale repeated, raising an eye brow. "That hasn't happened for a couple of centuries," he pointed out. "I rather thought witch hunts and excorcisms had gone out of fashion. Bit messy, all of them were."

"Yeah, I know," Crowley replied, before staring into his glass of red wine. "Thing is, I'm not exactly sure who it even is. I was in a flower shop today and got attacked with what felt like demon magic, but then there was..." he grimaced. "_Holy water_ as well, so I'm wondering whether it might have been something else." He looked up again. "No one on your side particularly wants to smite me, do they?"

"Not that I'm aware of, no."

"Thought so." Crowley looked back into his drink again. "Though I'm also wondering whether it had anything to do with the two humans in that store," he added absent-mindedly.

"Two humans?" Now Aziraphale sounded a little worried.

"There were two other shoppers," Crowley explained irritably. "The plants started attacking me and I was fighting for my existence and I _think_ the begonias were trying to get to them, too. I didn't get much of a look at them when I escaped through the back door."

"They were two _humans_?" Aziraphale asked again, though it now sounded more incredulous, shading into accusatory. "In a shop with possessed, murderous plants? And you _left them there_?!"

"They seemed to be doing fine!"

When Aziraphale's offended stare didn't seem to get any better at this defence, Crowley finally dropped his eyes and mumbled, "Besides, there haven't been any reports of weird deaths yet. I checked," he grumbled, like he wasn't particularly pleased with himself for that.

"...I see," Aziraphale said, sighing in a way that meant feathers were being smoothed down again. He examined his wine glass. "So, it's holy water and demonic plants, then?"

"I think so," Crowley said. "Doesn't seem to fit together, right? And the demon magic was stronger than mine. I couldn't even properly defend myself. I think it might be..." There was a scowl. "Hastur."

"Ah." Aziraphale winced in understanding.

"Yeah," Crowley confirmed glumly. "But then again, the strength would fit, but the style doesn't." Crowley took a breath. "Next thing, a human was tailing me at the cafe and the park as well."

"Anyone you recognized?"

"...not completely sure," Crowley hedged. "I _thought_ it might have been the same guy from the shop, though."

"But you're not sure?"

"No," Crowley admitted. "At some point I was considering it wasn't even a human but another demon possessing a body."

"Oh." Aziraphale's face set into a prim expression of reprehension again. The angel did not approve at all of highjacking a vessel without their consent."And was he posssessed?"

Crowley shook his head. "No."

"Well, at least that's something," Aziraphale said, but was apparently still a bit upset by the thought of someone stealing a body, because he proceeded to stir some sugar into his wine next. "Are you sure he wasn't, though? Especially if it's Hastur, you said that demons outranking you could also conceal their aura from you."

Crowley for some reason now looked curiously fascinated by a stain on the sofa.

"Uhm, yeah. Pretty sure the guy wasn't possessed."

"How so?"

"Er. More wine?"

"Crowley..." Azirphale's tone had now taken on that particular tone that suggested a smiting was not too far out of reach if the other didn't stop dancing away from a particular subject. "Exactly _how_ did you find out that he wasn't possessed by a demon?"

Crowley shifted in his seat again, looking slightly uncomfortable. "I. Uh. Imighthavebrieflytriedtopossesstheguymyself." The words came out in a tumble, but unfortunately, angelic hearing was just that good.

"_Really_, Crowley!"

"Come on, it would only have been one itty bitty teeny-tiny possession!"

"Just his big toe, I presume?" Aziraphale asked with a touch of sarcasm and Crowley scowled.

"It doesn't matter anyway, because I _didn't,_" he said, determinedly. "Well. Couldn't," he corrected himself. Hell's field agent could still remember trying, when he had noticed that particular human hiding away on the other side of the street, watching him. He had been good at it, too, Crowley had to admit, considering he had to have been there a while before the demon had noticed him. Crowley had relaxed then, let his own body slink somewhat deeper into the café chair and close his eyes behind the sunglasses while his consciousness slipped out of its physical shell, invisible to mortal gazes. Honestly, erupting from somewhere as black smoke was for _amateurs. _

Instead, Crowley's presence had swept across the street swiftly and quietly, passing oblivious humans strolling along the sidewalks. Their souls shone in their vessels, each one of them easy pickings for him in his current state - some of them, the ones perhaps a bit more faithful than others would have been harder to possess, but Crowley knew that if he had forced himself entry, their bodies would have been his. (Not that he particularly wanted to - to him, posessions had always seemed just a tad unhygienic, like the equivalent of using someone else's toothbrush). But when he had tried to get closer to the man watching him, within arm's reach of the see-through outline of his physical body, the human's soul burning an unusually fierce white inside him and Crowley reached out with his essence to discern whether it had been recently touched by another demon - there had been a double resistance repelling him so hard it had almost knocked him back into his own body before he could get a hold of himself.

There had been something imprinted on the soul, yes, but it definitely hadn't felt demonic. More like the opposite, actually. Crowley thought it had looked like a mark, a mark that had been giving off a fiercely protective and territorial vibe, hovering over the brightly pulsing soul like its own personal guardian. Not that this would even have been necessary - mainly because the _other_ thing barring his way had been a rune Crowley hadn't seen in quite a while. It was a five-pointed star encircled by a burning sun, which in this world of souls now hovered like a shield between him and the mortal's body, blocking any access and hope to find out more until Crowley had retreated into his own physical form again.

"The guy must have been wearing an anti-possession sigil somewhere on him," Crowley said to Aziraphale, ignoring the strange impression of an imprint for now because it definitely hadn't been anything to do with anyone down below, "Which could mean a hunter. But at least that'd mean that no one else could have been controlling him, either."

"Well, that's...something I suppose," Aziraphale said at last, though it didn't sound like the angel could make a lot of sense of what the demon had been telling him, either. "What do you want to do, then?" he asked.

"For the moment?" Crowley asked, emptying the last of his wine. "Stay here, I think. If it really should turn out to be just a hunter, I can deal with that. I asked some of my old contacts to scrounge up info, see whether I can't find out who's behind this. They should have something for me tomorrow morning." He stood up and brushed some dust and sofa lint off his pristine trousers. Whoever said cleanliness was next to godliness clearly had never seen Aziraphale and his dust farm that he called a bookshop. "Mainly, I wanted to warn you," Crowley said. "Because if it _is _a hunter, I hear that they're not too fond of angels, either. Maybe just keep an eye out for strange things, okay?"

"I will, dear," Aziraphale replied and if the two stayed together in the doorframe of the shop after that just a few moments too long, there was no one around to see why that was.

xxx

It was past midnight and it had only gotten colder since the sun had gone down. Dean and Sam were currently sitting in the parked Impala, huddled up because even in the car it was cold enough that they could see their breath in the air. They had spent the rest of the day trying to figure out their next step, and had determined that the most promising lead was still the guy in the black suit, whatever he was, and the best lead to find _him _was that goddamn Bentley. It had taken some time to track the car down, mostly because Sam had first found out that the Bentley wasn't even _registered_, and then that even with advanced hacking skills, trying to access the footage of the ubiquitous security cameras proved impossible. ('Who has designed this camera system, some kind of insane, mastermind genius?' Sam had asked at one point, exasperated). Luckily, they had soon struck paydirt on another site – classic automobile lovers of London seemed to have made it their hobby to take pictures of old cars around town and Sam had found several that showed the Bentley they were looking for parked in an upperclass residential area called Southbank. Which explained why now two decidedly non-upperclass men were sitting in a black Impala, and chowing down on two burgers, one salad and a pie while watching one apartment in particular.

"Sure that's the one?" Sam asked, his eyes fixed on the building that housed several spacious, modern flats with large windows. The curtains on all of them were drawn shut.

"Fairly sure," Dean replied. "I saw him come out while you were gone getting food."

"What?! Why didn't you grab him?!"

"He was only out there for like a second," Dean defended himself. "Anyway, at least we know he's in there now when we break in later."

Sam frowned. "What was he doing outside?"

Dean shifted a bit in his seat. "He...threw a plant away."

"A plant?" Sam repeated. "Like, like one of the ones that attacked us?"

"Well, _maybe,"_ Dean said, though it didn't sound like he thought so. "Didn't look like it would, though. Was only a very small flower."

"And he threw it in the trash?" Sam asked, looking at the garbage can. "Should we...uh, check it out?"

"I don't think it could be still dangerous," Dean seemed to be picking his words carefully. "It looked like the bottom of the plant had been encased in cement. Like a...mafia killing."

Sam looked at him. "What."

"Look, the flower looked scared, man!"

Sam took a breath. "Okay." He took a few more seconds to stare out of the window again. Then; "Okay, Dean, are we _sure_-?"

"Look, something is weird about that black suit guy and if he is a monster, we kill it, alright?!"

"Okay, okay, fine!" Sam held up his hands. "With you on that. We just haven't had a demon yet that plays _coin pranks_ and goes on and feeds ducks or whatever."

"And I'm telling you he _is_ a demon or some other freak. I saw his eyes. And the way he disappeared on me in the park."

"Yeah, okay." Sam looked at his phone. "But we've been here for more than three hours now waiting for an opportunity to break in and it's two am already, don't you think-"

And it was at that moment that Sam Winchester was interrupted when the apartment they were watching burst into bright, roaring flames.

"Wha-?" None of the brothers had had time to do anything else but stare, before the largest window of the top flat already _exploded_, and a burning, flailing figure burst from it, falling down to the ground in a shower of flames and feathers and glass.

And then there was the howling, and more windows burst apart as invisible _things _seemed to crash through _them_ and Dean's face showed that special kind of seasick-like terror that only barking without a dog can summon forth in those that have once been chased by hell hounds.

The figure crashed onto the wet asphalt, falling from a distance that no one should have survived. Dull thuds followed around him, casting shadows were none should have been where the fire had lit the street as if night was terrible day. And then the man with the sunglasses in the still burning suit took off running, crashes and patches of nothing where dog-shaped creatures were, roaring at his heels.

"...okay," said Sam, putting his salad down. "He _might_ not be human, then?"

xxx

At one o' clock in the morning, lying in his comfy bed, Crowley had thought nothing might happen tonight after all.

The second his apartment burst into flames and the hellhounds crashed through the door, _that_ theory (and the demon who had been considering it) went out the window.

Crowley could feel his ankles splintering and his shins crack as he impacted on the asphalt, but it was adrenaline that dulled the pain and panicked demon magic that healed them almost immediately as he took off running. He had briefly considered scrambling into the Bentley, but dismissed it – not only, if truthful, because they might have gotten to him before he got in, but also because even if those monsters should drag him to hell, a part of him really didn't think his poor Bentley deserved to share that fate.

And so, in the middle of the night in Southbank, one panicking, fully-fledged demon, a horde of foaming at the mouth invisible hell beasts, and two men in a '67 Impala with the steering wheel on entirely the wrong side for this country, were barreling through moonlit London on their way to Soho.

It said something about the city that this wasn't even too far out of the ordinary.

_To be continued..._

* * *

And Supernatural continues to be highly entertaining. Which is great, because it makes writing this fic all the more fun! :D As do your comments, of course - if you read, please review!


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